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| Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd |
A meteor collision forces the TARIS to land in the nascent country of China, during the reign of the First Emperor Qin. It is a brutal land where order is maintained by the sword. When the Doctor is taken away to work on an elixir of life for the Emperor, Victoria and Jamie must choose who to trust in their quest to rescue him.
Unlike The Suffering, this isn't a true two-hander. The narrative rests with Victoria, and Hines only provides his own lines, in the conventional manner for the Chronicles. Unfortunately, this leaves Watling to provide the Doctor's voice, despite not being a patch on Hines for doing so. In fact, listening in a fairly sleepy state, I quite forgot which Doctor it was and was rather startled to hear him playing the recorder.
The story is pretty straightforward, hampered by the usual limitations of a celebrity historical. That being said, it works in a number of curious and genuine historical footnotes, including the meteor strike of 211BC, the willingness of the Prime Minister to conceal the Emperor's death in the name of stability, and the Emperor's obsession with immortality. It's pretty brutal, being a history warts-and-all type of story; it comes out to seem a little judgmental of Chinese history, but this is more a feature of Big Finish historicals as compared to the older TV serials, and it is no more so than, for example, The Settling is of British history.
Next on our list is UNIT science fiction goodness, with Caroline John in Shadow of the Past.
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